Refugees

Hackney’s Huguenots: the first ‘refugees’

The image shows a family on the seashore: a couple with two children and an older woman seated on one of the rocks. The man looks back towards where they’ve come from and the woman towards the choppy waters from where a boat is heading towards them.

In the 1700s, Hackney welcomed a new population of French refugees seeking shelter from religious persecution. Although more famously associated with nearby Spitalfields, many settled and prospered in the rural villages that now make up the borough of Hackney. Who were the Huguenots? Between 1660 and 1714, around 40,000 ‘Huguenots’ – French Christians who had … Read more

Belgian Refugees in Hackney 1914-1919

The German invasion of Belgium in 1914 resulted in the largest arrival of refugees in British history, as people fled the conflict and reports of violence against civilians. Around 3,000 refugees passed through the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney during the First World War (1914-18), with around 100 Belgians settling here for a longer period of … Read more